Abstract
IN a lecture of this title recently delivered at the London Hospital and published in the Lancet of November 7, Dr. Donald Hunter, physician to the Hospital, remarks that the world to-day is too busy applauding successful military commanders, popular orators and authors to recognize that all its material advance has been achieved by men of science. He quoted numerous instances- of scientific and medical men who were distinguished by having met dangers and often death for the sake of their work. In the first place he showed how our knowledge of toxic gases owed much to the self-sacrifice of pioneer workers, as in the cases of Gehlen, a Munich chemist, and Dr. K. C. Shierbeck, of Copenhagen, whose deaths in 1815 and 1920 respectively were due to arseniuretted hydrogen. In like manner, nitrous oxide proved fatal to Dr. S. R. Wilson in 1927, and hydrofluoric acid to Louyet and Nickles in 1869. In addition to numerous deaths among doctors and nurses due to attending patients suffering from acute infectious diseases, many laboratory workers have lost their lives in the investigation of certain dangerous tropical diseases, especially yellow fever, following experimental mosquito bites, as in the case of Lazear in 1900 and Walter Myers in 1901, pneumonic plague (T. C. Parkinson, 1909), verrugas (D. A. Carrion) and kala azar (W. R. Pirie). Numerous injuries and deaths from X-rays after many years of suffering occurred in radiologists before efficient means of protection were discovered, while it is not yet practicable to protect completely those who handle radioactive substances.
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Saints and Martyrs. Nature 138, 1048 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381048a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381048a0